What is happening in our beloved Iowa and nation?

It feels like we are now living in a third-world authoritarian state and country. From Iowa slashing higher education and public schools funding, to closure of mental health centers, privatization of Medicaid with dire outcomes, cutting social services across the board impacting the most vulnerable and poorest Iowans, to the disgraceful law signed by the governor halting all termination of pregnancies past six weeks. Iowans must vote during midterm elections to reverse this attack on our civil liberties and human rights. We transitioned from a top-notch inclusive state with enviable top quality public education, social/medical support for all Iowans and fair tax policies, to a dwindling and failing state supporting only affluent Iowans with the most restricted safe choices for women in the nation.

Nationall, since 2016, we have been bombarded daily by vulgar assaults on prime-time news. From porn star and playgirl illicit claims, to the president’s attorney’s involvements in hush payments, to almost weekly firings of White House top personnel, to cajoling Russia in spite of clear election intervention and ongoing flagrant attempts to interfere in our democratic institutions. In the absence of a sane immigration policy, Muslim/immigrant bans, border walls and deportations became the nation’s current substitute policy. The Dreamers who came to the U.S. as children/infants are in limbo, including many from Honduras who soon may be deported.

Globally, we are in a secret war in Yemen, intervening in Syria and the Middle East, with the death of any potential peace between Israelis and Palestinians. We support a power-hungry, violent and self-obsessed Saudi Prince who tortures his own kin and continues to behead his adversaries killing 12 each month! We sold him billions of dollars in military armament to kill, maim and starve mostly civilians in Yemen. We encourage his and others to blockade one of our closets Arab allies — Qatar — where our largest regional military base is located.

In 15 months, our government and leadership practically obliterated any sense of being an even-handed peace broker in the Holy Lands. We stay silent when hundreds of mostly peaceful Palestinians are killed and maimed while demonstrating against their blockade and oppression by occupying forces. The final nail in the coffin was secured when President Trump announced Jerusalem to be the formal capital of Israel and home to the new U.S. embassy. It was followed by the confirmation of Mike Pompeo as secretary of state. Pompeo, during his first trip, supported the expansionist policies of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to annex more West Bank occupied lands and did not attempt to meet with any Palestinian leader.

Pompeo campaigned for Congress as a Tea Party candidate, took hard-line positions on Iran, believed Guantanamo Bay prison should remain open and defended the use of torture. He played down the fact Russians attempted to influence the 2016 elections, and defended the National Security Agency bulk data collection program. He is now our top international diplomat advising our president and administration.

In 2013, following the Boston Marathon bombing, Pompeo made serious allegations against American Muslims and their organizations in an attempt to silence both. He took to the house floor, suggesting that some Muslim faith leaders and organizations might be encouraging terrorist attacks against their own country stating, “Instead of responding, silence has made these Islamic leaders across America potentially complicit in these acts and, more importantly still, in those that may well follow." He apparently does not want to hear the overwhelming and thunderous response by all American Muslims against such monstrosity and all violence perpetuated in the name of their scared religion. One does not recall his response following the mass murders in Las Vegas shooting or at the Parkland high school or the many mass murders in our country by non-Muslims! Adding more insult to injury, the president nominated Gina Haspel as CIA director — a well-known torture supporter who directly oversaw a “black site" in Thailand.

These are unprecedented and disturbing times in our beloved country and state when politicians are misleading and using us to divide and conquer.

“We in the United States, above all, must remember that we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.” — President Ronald Reagan, in a speech at Temple Hillel in Valley Stream, New York on October 26, 1984

In the midterm election, we all must vote our conscious and assure that this current ugly tide be reversed. Our future and our children’s future lie in our unity, not in dividing, misleading sound bites, fake news or daily tweets.

“We are not here to curse the darkness, but to light the candle that can guide us thru that darkness to a safe and sane future” — President John F. Kennedy

Shams Ghoneim is coordinator for the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Iowa and serves on the Press-Citizen Editorial Board.